Photo Op July 15 (see blog entry)

CURRENT PLANETS and brilliant stars in early July. Directions and times are for the northern subtropics and vary somewhat for other latitudes.• Bright & golden Mercury is close to the western horizon at dusk, sets WNW after dark.• Bright & orange Mars is SW at dusk, sets west near midnight.• Bright & yellowish Saturn is SSW at dusk, sets west after midnight and isaccompanied very closely by the bright and blueish star Spica.• Very brilliant off-white Jupiter rises ENE predawn, is low east late dawn.• Extremely brilliant white Venus rises ENE predawn, is low east before sunrise and isaccompanied very closely by the bright and orange star Aldebaran.• Brilliant & blueish star Sirius will rise before the Sun late July.• Brilliant white star Canopus will peek above the horizon before the Sun around late August.

Scroll past the links below to find special events for current and future dates.Scroll farther to find past events.

July 15 before DawnENE before dawn the bright & orange star Aldebaran and the ">" shaped Hyades star cluster will be visible close to extremely brilliant white planet Venus. The tiny dipper shaped Pleiades star cluster will be visible well above very brilliant off-white Jupiter.

Even in the very bright dawn shortly before sunrise the thin crescent moon, Venus and Jupiter will still be visible.

Events earlier than those listed below will be found in previous blog entries.

February 26 after SunsetA crescent moon will travel beside the brilliant off-white planet Jupiter. Below them is the brilliant white planet Venus. Jupiter and Venus will appear very close March 12 & 13.

March 24-27 after SunsetThere will be good photo opportunities with the crescent moon in the western sky. (See the series of images just below.) Total darkness comes about 1½ hours after sunset. Between half an hour to an hour after sunset are some nice twilight skies. You can step outside any evening starting now, see the brilliant planets Jupiter and Venus, get an idea of lighting at various times and take some test shots.

After dark the two star clusters closest to Earth are easily seen above Jupiter and Venus. To the naked eye the Pleiades cluster appears as a tiny white dipper shaped pattern of stars standing above brilliant white Venus. The Hyades cluster appears farther above as a larger V-shaped pattern of stars with the bright and orangeish star Aldebaran at one corner. Binocular views of these star clusters are spectacular.

A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT VIEWING THE ECLIPSE:"....no matter what, do not use "filters" such as smoked glass, stacked sunglasses, polarized filters, camera filters, candy wrappers, or compact discs. They might reduce the Sun's glare, but enough harmful radiation can sneak through to damage your eyes. Only use materials specifically manufactured for safe solar viewing, or #14 arcwelders glass."

Some phase of the eclipse will be visible for most of North America before or during sunset. The path of annularity (where the Sun will appear as a "ring of fire" arround the Moon) is at least 150 miles wide. The path of annularity makes landfall at the California-Oregon border and continues into NW Texas. See the general visibility map for North America.

If all the ambitious mission goals are met the SpaceX Dragon capsule will be the first private commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) and it will also return cargo to Earth.

The partial lunar eclipse will be in progress at moonset/sunrise for all but the most eastern and northern area of the Americas. The entire eclipse sequence will be visible from nearly all the Pacific Ocean including eastern Australia and eastern Indonesia. The partial lunar eclipse will be significantly in progress at moonsrise/sunset for the most eastern areas of the Asia.

The transit of Venus will be visible on June 5 until sunset for the 48 states. Alaska and Hawaii will be able to observe the entire transit. Starting west of the International Date Line (IDL) the transit will be visible on June 6. Farther west the transit will be in progress at sunrise.

A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT VIEWING THE TRANSIT:"....no matter what, do not use "filters" such as smoked glass, stacked sunglasses, polarized filters, camera filters, candy wrappers, or compact discs. They might reduce the Sun's glare, but enough harmful radiation can sneak through to damage your eyes. Only use materials specifically manufactured for safe solar viewing, or #14 arcwelders glass."

I was able to buy a pair of eclipse shades like this...... for $1 at a local camera & telescope store.

JPL Open House

June 9 & 109AM - 4PM

The annual Open House at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., welcomes over 38,000 visitors. This year's theme is "Great Journeys," inviting visitors to share in the wonders of space through high-definition and 3-D videos, live demonstrations, interactions with scientists and engineers, and a first look at JPL's new Earth Science Center.

The crescent moon should be more obvious this evening but binoculars still might be needed find Mercury 20 minutes after sunset. Binoculars will also give an improved view of the craters and mountains in the Moon's thin crescent.

By about 45 minutes after sunset Mercury should be obvious to the right of the thin crescent. The pair will make a nice photo op against a twilight sky with silhouettes on the horizon below.

The beginning of the previously announced launch window is early dawn. The Delta IV Heavy configuration uses two additional first stage engines as strap on boosters. The three RS-68 liquid hydrogen-oxygen engines create long orange flames and water vapor exhaust that shows up as a heavy condensation trail.

The announced target time of launch is about 10 minutes before sunrise. This could result in a condensation trail that rises from low light into bright and reddish sunrise colors - a nice photo op.

Up Date Photo 3/11/12 . VERY IMPORTANT NEWS. Photo taken at 10:05A.M. What is going on now is the #1 event of importance regarding the Sun and Earths Weather and conditions for now and future. I am and have been entering Photos to advise. Below is a copy of updates and interest info! Sunspots - News Results Solar Storms Continue, Northern Lights Increase WebProNews - Mar 09 08:55am Earth Braces for Geomagnetic Storming After More Solar FlaresPC Magazine - Mar 10 02:48pm Biggest solar storms.

WALLOPS ISLAND, VA – NASA successfully launched five suborbital sounding rockets this morning from its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia as part of a study of the upper level jet stream.
The first rocket was launched at 4:58 a.m. EDT and each subsequent rocket was launched 80 seconds apart.
Each of the rockets released a chemical tracer that created milky, white clouds at the edge of space.

Cloudy most of the day but got a break in between clouds. Took this picture at 6:37P.M. with many Sunspots. One of the rarest solar system events (only seven have happened since Galileo's time). Venus' transit of the Sun

Oss Thanks for those links. It's hard to believe half a century has passed. It's good to contemplate all we've accomplished and haven't accomplished in that time. It's a good time to evaluate our pace going forward.

Mounting costs and satellite development delays will likely mean NOAA's next polar-orbiting weather satellite will launch after its current operational spacecraft is retired, officials said.

Kathryn Sullivan, NOAA's deputy administrator, said studies show weather prediction would suffer without complete atmospheric data collected by satellites in polar orbit.....Delays in launching NOAA's new weather satellites have stemmed from administrative mismanagement and inadequate budgets, according to a watchdog agency.....

Expedition 32 began Sunday, July 1, when the Expedition 31 crew undocked from the International Space Station. Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineers Sergei Revin and Joe Acaba continued their stay and have been living aboard the orbiting complex since May 17. They launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft two days earlier from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan and docked to the Poisk mini-research module.

Three additional Expedition 32 flight engineers, NASA astronaut Suni Williams, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Aki Hoshide and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, are set to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in their Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft July 14 and dock to the station on July 17.Credit: NASA - Crews and Expeditions

Skye There were three HOLDs today before the launch finally happened 3 hours later than the announced schedule.

I stayed up too late last night and the only way I would have been awake at the scheduled time would have been to just stay awake. Luckily I didn't and didn't have to stay awake 3 more hours waiting for the actual launch or I would have been of no use to anyone today.

I'm actually suspicious of delays in National Reconnaissance Office launches. I suspect most aren't because of a real problem. I think they're just keeping the real launch time secret until it actually happens, lol. It doen't sound like a bad idea.

I'm looking forward to seeing your contrail pic and hopefully other WunderPhotographers pics of the launch.

About the rumble... there's a reason they call it Heavy.

I considered mentioning the rumble in my heads up for the nearby locals... but I didn't want to spoil the fun. :^D

BEIJING - China's Shenzhou 9 spacecraft returned to Earth on Friday, ending a mission that put the country's first woman in space and completed a manned docking test critical to its goal of building a space station by 2020.

The spacecraft re-entered Earth's atmosphere and touched down shortly after 10 a.m. in China's northwestern Inner Mongolia, with its three-person crew, including female astronaut Liu Yang.

Beijing has hailed the nearly two-week mission as a technical breakthrough for the country's growing space programme. The launch and docking exercises with the experimental Tiangong 1 space lab module were carried live on state television.

China is far from catching up with the established space superpowers, the United States and Russia, but the Shenzhou 9 marked China's fourth manned space mission since 2003, and comes as budget restraints and shifting priorities have held back U.S. manned space launches.

The United States will not test a new rocket to take people into space until 2017, and Russia has said manned missions are no longer a priority.

NASA has begun investing in U.S. firms to provide commercial spaceflight services and is spending about $3 billion a year on a new rocket and capsule to send astronauts to the moon, asteroids and eventually to Mars.

China plans an unmanned moon landing and deployment of a moon rover and its scientists have raised the possibility of sending a man to the moon, but not before 2020. - Reuters

This animation depicts the proposed test flight of the Orion spacecraft in 2014. During the test, which is called Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), Orion will launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., perform two orbits, reaching an altitude higher than any achieved by a spacecraft intended for human use since 1973, and then will re-enter and land in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of the United States

www.nasa.gov/multimedia for more related content and information on this project

A major milestone has been achieved for NASA’s Orion program with the first Orion destined for space being shipped to the Kennedy Space Center. Construction on the spacecraft was finished at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana this week, and final outfitting and heat shield installation will take place at KSC.

This spacecraft will fly on Exploration Flight Test-1, an unmanned test that is scheduled two years from now. The EFT-1 flight will take Orion to an altitude of more than 3,600 miles, more than 15 times farther away from Earth than the International Space Station. Orion will return home at a speed of 25,000 miles per hour, almost 5,000 miles per hour faster than any human spacecraft. It will mimic the return conditions that astronauts experience as they come home from voyages beyond low Earth orbit. As Orion reenters the atmosphere, it will endure temperatures up to 4,000 degrees F., higher than any human spacecraft since astronauts returned from the moon.

This first Orion will fly atop a Delta IV Heavy, a rocket operated by United Launch Alliance. While this launch vehicle will provide sufficient lift for the EFT-1 flight plan, NASA’s SLS rocket will be needed for the vast distances of future exploration missions.

Following EFT-1, the first integrated flight test will launch an uncrewed Orion on the SLS in 2017. That test will put the entire integrated exploration system through its paces. The Orion spacecraft will have the capability to carry astronauts to the moon, asteroids, Mars and other deep space destinations.

Lockheed Martin Corp. is preparing to ship the pressure shell for the first space-bound Orion capsule from a Louisiana factory to the Kennedy Space Center, where it will be readied for liftoff on an orbital test flight in 2014.....The Orion capsule's first voyage in space - called Exploration Flight Test 1 - will verify the spacecraft's heat shield during re-entry at speeds mimicking what the capsule will experience on subsequent missions to the moon, asteroids, or other deep space destinations.....The Orion spacecraft - also called the multipurpose crew vehicle - is NASA's next human-rated spacecraft designed for astronaut voyages beyond low Earth orbit.

Piloted Orion flights will blast off on the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket, which is scheduled for its first test flight in 2017. NASA's schedule calls for the first crewed Orion mission in 2021.

NASA has added the Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket to its fleet of launchers for robotic research and exploration missions, the space agency announced Tuesday.

The two-stage rocket is being developed by Orbital Sciences as a cargo launcher to serve the International Space Station, but it could double as an economical booster for NASA's scientific satellites.

With costs of proven United Launch Alliance rockets on the rise, NASA is seeking new launch options for its research missions, especially polar-orbiting Earth observation satellites, which have been hardest hit by launch woes.....

....SpaceX also said it completed multiple restarts of the Merlin 1D engine at its test facility in McGregor, Texas. A modified version of the engine for vacuum firings will be used on Falcon 9 upper stages.

"An enhanced design makes the Merlin 1D the most efficient booster engine ever built, with a vacuum thrust-to-weight ratio exceeding 150, while still maintaining the structural and thermal safety margins needed to carry astronauts," SpaceX said in a statement.

The company says the engine is also tailored for high rates of production utilizing fewer parts and robotic construction methods.

The payload capability of the Falcon 9 v1.1 will be increased by over 40%.

It is a great URL for video on Landing the Mars rover. Anyone rattled by comments to blogs or blog titles for that matter probably won't stick around the Weather Underground blogs for long anyway, lol.

Rob Hopefully you'll get some blue sky in the east at the right moment on Friday morning.

I'm gonna go out on a limb, here, and suggest that people don't go to great lengths to change their plans in order to see that launch, LOL Never know, though - Debby may give them a break.A big-rocket launch right before sunrise will certainly be a perfect photo op!

Thanks, LC, for all the news bites (on the previous page's comments). The Chinese seem to have a real plan. Very exciting!The ESA bit was interesting ... maybe they're thinking ahead, too? Between the two, we may yet have orbiting habitats in our lifetime.When I was a kid I thought I'd be living on a space station (or the moon). Now I just hope that I avoid senility long enough to read about other folks living their lives in space.Hmmm. I wonder if my current disappointment with the U.S. space program is coming through in my writing ... Sorry ;) It really is an exciting time.

Oh, wait! Here - a little overview of the latest Mars Rover, due to touch down in August:http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/06/2 3/landing-the-mars-rover/Not linked because ... well. Folks may not like all the comments there but the entry has good stuff all together in one place :)

I updated the Cape Canaveral launch window and target time in the blog entry. Here's my current commentary on the possibilities of the launch's appearance:

The beginning of the previously announced launch window is early dawn. The Delta IV Heavy configuration uses two additional first stage engines as strap on boosters. The three RS-68 liquid hydrogen-oxygen engines create long orange flames and water vapor exhaust that shows up as a heavy condensation trail.

The announced target time of launch is about 10 minutes before sunrise. This could result in a condensation trail that rises from low light into bright and reddish sunrise colors - a nice photo op.

All of that commentary is conditional on whether or not the proximity of Debby causes any violations of launch weather constraints.

....The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, or CYGNSS, will receive $151.7 million from NASA over the next five years. Eight microsatellites will launch together in 2017 on a single rocket, then deploy in low Earth orbit.....CYGNSS will use GPS signals to derive the roughness of the ocean surface, from which wind speed is retrieved, according to NASA.

The satellites will make measurements similar to the QuikSCAT satellite, which lost the use of its spinning radar scatterometer instrument in 2009. During its 10-year mission, QuikSCAT detected wind speed and direction over 90 percent of the Earth's surface every day.....

....The European Space Agency is considering options to fulfill a debt of about $600 million owed to NASA for Europe's share of the space station's operating costs between 2017 and 2020. ....One evolution study will look at using the ATV's service module section to provide propulsion for NASA's Orion spacecraft, which is designed to carry astronauts to deep space destinations such as asteroids, the moon and Mars.

The combination of the ATV's service module, which is currently built by Astrium Space Transportation in Germany, with the Orion capsule would meet ESA's obligation to the space station program and give Europe a major role in future space exploration.

The other alternative to be evaluated by Astrium will define a concept to develop a versatile spacecraft to support space stations, remove old satellites and space debris from orbit, and provide resources to orbital free flyers and habitats.....

Three Chinese astronauts will temporarily depart their quarters inside the orbiting Tiangong 1 space lab early Sunday, backing away inside a Shenzhou spacecraft before pilot Liu Wang takes control of the capsule to complete the first manual docking in China's burgeoning space program.....The manual docking maneuver is crucial for China's future space aspirations, which include the launch of a larger man-tended Tiangong space lab in a few years. But first, China plans another crewed flight to Tiangong 1 within a year.

China plans to launch a larger space station around 2020 to potentially house permanent inhabitants.....

UPDATE: Two of the Chinese astronauts have successfully accomplished manual docking so far today. Link

I spotted the extremely thin partial crescent of the Moon 15 minutes after Sunset about 7° above the WNW horizon with binoculars. At first it looked like barely more than 1/4 of a circle's edge. When the sky grew darker it grew to about 1/3 of a circle's edge.

Two minutes later I was able to spot the crescent with naked eye. If I hadn't already spotted it with binoculars and known exactly where to look I doubt I would have spotted it so soon.

I was able to spot starlike Mercury above the crescent with binoculars 25 minutes after sunset and 11 minutes later I could locate it with naked eye.

Tonight the crescent moon won't be so thin. It will be brighter, higher above the horizon and easy to spot without binoculars. Mercury will be to the right of the crescent. The pair will make a nice photo op against a twilight sky with silhouettes on the horizon below.